Daily Racing Form National Digital Edition
Tapit Trice has Pletcher, Tapit, and strong work going for him
ELMONT, N.Y. – Trainer Todd Pletcher has enjoyed great success in the Belmont Stakes with also-rans from the Kentucky Derby. The stallion Tapit has enjoyed sensational success in the Belmont having produced four of the last nine winners of the third leg of the Triple Crown.
Those two factors alone make the Grade 1 winner Tapit Trice a contender in the Belmont Stakes here on June 10. Add in a goodlooking workout Friday morning at Belmont Park and you just may have the favorite for the 155th Test of the Champion.
On a gorgeous Friday morning, Tapit Trice worked five furlongs in 1:00.16 over the main track, according to Daily Racing Form. He started just off workmate Classic Catch and finished about 2 1/2 lengths in front at the wire. Under exercise rider Fernando Rivera, Tapit Trice went in splits of 12.51 seconds, 24.47, 35.97, and got his last quarter in 24.19 seconds. Tapit Trice galloped out six furlongs in 1:12.94, seven-eighths in 1:25.44, and a mile in 1:38.69.
“It was a strong work throughout, super strong gallop-out, seems to be in good form,” Pletcher said.
Classic Catch, fourth in the Grade 3 Peter Pan last out, is under consideration for the Grade 3, $400,000 Matt Winn at Churchill Downs on June 11 or the $150,000 Pegasus Stakes at Monmouth Park on June 17.
Pletcher said Tapit Trice came out of his seventh-place finish in the Kentucky Derby well enough where the horse has now worked twice since the race and will have one more breeze next week.
Tapit Trice, who went off the 9-2 second choice in the Derby, finished seventh, beaten 9 1/4 lengths. In the Derby, Tapit Trice was last of 18 coming under the wire the first time. He advanced some down the backstretch, then had to go eight wide coming to the quarter pole and just flattened out in the final furlong.
“He got farther back than we hoped,” Pletcher said. “The only thing that maybe we could have done differently is get him in the clear down the backside. I think he found a good spot where he was trying to follow Mage, but it held up his momentum a little bit. We got to the far turn, they spurted away from him a little bit. That’s one of the reasons why I think he’s going to run to his best at Belmont because of the bigger turns.”
Tapit Trice will try to become Pletcher’s fifth Belmont Stakes winner. He has won it with the filly Rags to Riches, and the colts Palace Malice, Tapwrit (by Tapit), and Mo Donegal.
Tapit’s other Belmont winners are Tonalist, Creator, and Essential Quality.
Tapit Trice is one of three horses Pletcher is hoping to get to the Belmont Stakes. Forte, the Kentucky Derby favorite who was scratched the morning of the race due to a bruised foot, had his work this week pushed back from Friday to Saturday.
Kingsbarns, the Louisiana Derby winner who finished 14th in the Kentucky Derby, won’t work this weekend after showing signs of colic Friday morning. “He seems to be responding to treatment right now. He had a bellyache starting about 4 o’clock this morning so we’ve been treating that,” Pletcher said. “Hoping it’s something he’ll be able to get over without surgical intervention but it’s knocking us off schedule.”
Pletcher said Kingsbarns is not “definitively” out of the Belmont, but the timing “is less than ideal obviously,” he added.
◗ Il Miracolo has been added to the Belmont field by trainer Antonio Sano. Il Miracolo was beaten double-digit lengths in the Grade 3 Holy Bull, Grade 2 Fountain of Youth, and Grade 1 Florida Derby.
On May 11, he won a oneturn, one-mile allowance race at Gulfstream Park by 1 3/4 lengths. Sano said Marco Meneses, aboard for the allowance win, will ride Il Miracolo in the Belmont.
On Friday, over a sloppy Gulfstream Park main track, Il Miracolo worked five furlongs in 1:01.06 in company with the 3-year-old Artico.
◗ National Treasure, the Preakness winner arrived at Belmont by van from Pimlico on Wednesday. He jogged Thursday and galloped 1 1/8 miles on Friday morning.
Bob Baffert, the trainer of National Treasure, did not ship Arabian Lion, the Sir Barton winner, to New York. Arabian Lion instead shipped back to California where Baffert will oversee his training before making a decision where he runs next.